


Secrets Kept

by georgiamagnolia



Category: Man From U.N.C.L.E.
Genre: Alternate After Canon, Alternate Future, Alternate History, Established Relationship, Original Character Death(s), Other, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-28
Updated: 2012-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-30 06:32:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/328814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/georgiamagnolia/pseuds/georgiamagnolia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Our choices don't always lead us to the destinations we thought they would but sometimes to where we need to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Secrets Kept

Napoleon stood staring at the gravestone without word or motion so long that Amy finally walked over to him and put her hand gently on his arm.  
  
"I'm sorry my dear, they are going to lock the gates. We can come back tomorrow."  
  
Napoleon looked up and across the manicured lawns and statues of Green-Wood as if expecting more than the setting sun to greet him. For just a moment he felt a sickening dizziness seize him and he squeezed his eyes shut to block the slanting light and the shadow that was trying to swallow the stone in front of him. He thought to himself that conventional wisdom had it all wrong, it was not in the moment of danger that one could see life flashing before the eyes, it was in moments of loss that the lives that could have been lived were seen.  
  
*** ~~~ ***  
  
"Are you sure this is what you want?”  
  
“Shouldn’t I be asking you that question?” Napoleon smiled down at the most beautiful girl he’d ever known.  
  
“There’s a whole world out there, what if you find another girl to fall in love with?”  
  
Napoleon’s smile widened and he put one arm around the girl and leaned close. “I’d have to be looking, wouldn’t I?”  
  
Moments later their names were called and they followed the court officer into the small room where a judge was officiating marriage ceremonies. They handed the man in dark robes their paperwork and identification and he studied it, then studied them.  
  
“You’ll be shipping out soon then?” The judge looked over his wire framed glasses at Napoleon who couldn’t tell if his expression was a frown or not. He’d worn his uniform because it was as nice as any suit he owned and his future wife thought him handsome in it.  
  
“Yes sir, tomorrow.”  
  
“See you come back safe to your young lady then.” The judge signed the documents and then opened a book on the desk before which the young couple stood. He carried out the ceremony, one he had repeated countless times, as if it were the most important moment of the day, his voice soft but with command.  
  
“Do you Adrienne take Napoleon to be your lawfully wedded husband…” his voice continued and they repeated the words he bade them, never once breaking their gaze at one another. “I now pronounce you…” the court officer and another man signed as witnesses and as quick as that Napoleon and his bride were on the courthouse steps still starry eyed and now dazed.  
  
“We’ll take a trip when I come home, a delayed honeymoon. I’ll have some time before I start University and you’ll be done by then with your studies. Where do you want to go first? It will be a combined University graduation gift and honeymoon, you should choose.”  
  
“I just want to be with you.”  
  
“You can be with me anywhere you want in the whole wide world, Mrs. Solo.”  
  
“How about a honeymoon suite for now?” She blushed ever so slightly as she said it.  
  
“Your wish, my wife.” Napoleon’s smile was so big he thought he might break something but he couldn’t stop grinning, he had never felt so hopeful and filled with joy as this moment.  
  
***  
  
“The bus is going to leave, you have to go.”  
  
“Trying to rid yourself of me already?” Napoleon leaned down and brushed his lips against Adrienne’s cheek, the most affection he knew he might get away with at a bus stop.  
  
“No my darling, but I don’t want to visit you in the stockade or wherever they put you when you don’t show up in the military.”  
  
“You’re worth going AWOL for.” Napoleon pulled his freshly minted wife to him in a tight hug, breathing in the clean scent of her hair and trying to memorize the texture of her hands in his.  
  
“Come home to me, my darling.”  
  
“Always.”  
  
There was the sound of a brake releasing and Napoleon pulled away from the embrace, ran for the closing door on the bus and waved as it pulled from the curb and the exhaust almost obscured his view of Adrienne waving in the early morning light. She kissed her fingers and waved until the bus turned the corner.  
  
*** ~~~ ***  
  
Amy led him to the gates where a car waited, warm with the engine running and a young man coming around the hood to open the back door. Amy frowned as Napoleon folded himself into the back.  
  
“Terrence, I think I’ll sit up front with you. Let’s go home now.”  
  
The driver parked in the basement garage of the building where Amy lived, she was out the door before he could get around the car. She opened the back door of the car and leaned inside.  
  
“Napoleon. We’re home, Napoleon, please come upstairs with me now.” There was no response.  
  
“Miss Amy, can I help you?”  
  
“I’m sorry for the delay. Thank you for waiting so long for us today, Terrence.” She stood back from the open car door, drawing the young man away a few steps. “My nephew has just returned from Korea and he’s come home to so much loss. I’m afraid I just don’t know what to do to help.”  
  
“If I may say so, Miss Amy, I can’t imagine you not being able to help.”  
  
“That is so sweet of you, young man.” Amy patted his arm, then turned as she heard movement from the car. Napoleon emerged from the car with an uncharacteristic stiffness. His injured leg must still be a bother so she reached for him, but made it look as if he was the one helping her.  
  
“Will you be needing the car again tomorrow?”  
  
Amy looked to Napoleon and saw the barest hint of his head moving to indicate a no, she smiled at Terrence. “I don’t think so, Terrence, thank you.”  
  
“You just call the service and ask for me, I will be happy to take you wherever you need to go.”  
  
“I will. You have a good night and be safe.”  
  
“You as well, Miss Amy. Goodnight.” He stood watching, as if to say more, then shook his head and turned back to the car as the two made their way to the elevator. Terrence waited to see them get in the elevator safely, then started the car and pulled out of the parking space, a thoughtful and perhaps worried look on his face. He had seen his brother return from war like that, he recognized that look. He hoped that his favourite client could pull her wounded nephew out of that well of darkness.  
  
***  
  
Amy bustled around the kitchen making everything she knew Napoleon loved. He’d locked himself in her guest room two days before and she was starting to worry. She had a key for the door but hesitated to invade his privacy. She knew that he needed to work his grief out in his own way. She had more than once heard movement in the room so she knew he was still breathing, at least. Once he emerged they would have very many things to discuss not least of which was his inheritance from his grandfather. Amy wanted him to be clear headed and back to himself when they had that conversation. The timer went off on the stove and she checked the roast, tender and juicy perfection. She moved the roasting pan to the warming shelf and adjusted the temperature in the oven for the next pan she slid into place. The kitchen was filled with warm scents that meant home and comfort and she hoped they were penetrating the bedroom door down the hall.  
  
Luncheon finished and ready for presentation, Amy finally gave up and took the key from the kitchen drawer. She let herself into the guest room and quietly approached the bed. Napoleon was deeply asleep, the most peaceful she had seen him since his return. She didn’t have the heart to wake him. She was turning to go and saw a pile of letters on the bedside table, one of them had singe marks and there was a pack of matches next to it. Amy wondered what in the world had made him want to light them on fire, and what had stopped him. She held her breath and stole forward to gather all the letters and the matches as well. She locked the door again on her way out.  
  
~~~ *** ~~~  
  
 _My dearest Husband,  
  
Already I miss you and you have been gone only a day. I have no news of course, nothing new has happened in the few hours you have been gone but I want for there to be a letter from me awaiting you when you get to wherever they are sending you. You will smile the sweet way you do and call me silly and I do not care, I care only that you smile that way for me forever. I will address this as you instructed and send with it my hopes for your safe return to me.  
  
As ever with love,  
Your Wife_  
  
~~~ *** ~~~  
  
Amy put the letter down and inspected the envelope. The stack had been sorted by postmark, oldest on the top and the barest edge was singed, not enough to have obscured any writing. The envelope was addressed to Napoleon and the return address information included only the name Solo with the initial A in front of it, a New York address.  
  
Amy continued to read the letters, they were sweet and rather innocent, speaking of everyday events and dinners with parents and the studies of the young lady who authored them. Every letter was to her _dearest Husband_ and signed _your Wife_ as if it were a secret code. Halfway down the stack the handwriting changed and the postmark was smudged and the address was reversed. These letters were from Napoleon, all unopened, addressed to Adrienne Solo and every single one of them stamped across the middle with ‘Return to Sender’ and sometimes that stamp was joined by a second that said ‘Deceased’.  
  
Amy sat for a very long time staring at those unopened envelopes.  
  
The afternoon was almost past when Amy stood again, went to a closet in the hall and pulled out her sewing basket. She found what she was looking for, a length of black grosgrain ribbon, and returned the kit to the shelf. She tied the letters together and sat them on the hall table while she went into the kitchen and put the forgotten lunch in the icebox. Returning to the hall she made a call and picked up her purse and the packet of letters. She waited ten minutes and then left the apartment, locking the door as she went.  
  
  
Terrence rounded the hood of the car and opened the back door of the dark sedan as his client came down the steps. He stood by the door and waited as Miss Amy exchanged a quiet word with the doorman of her building. Her smile when she joined him was not the sunny brilliance he was used to seeing, though there was no mistaking that she was glad to see him.  
  
“Miss Amy, it is good to see you again.”  
  
“Thank you Terrence. I am so glad you are working today. Would you mind terribly if I sit up front again? I know it isn’t usual and you were kind enough to let me do so a few days ago. My nephew prefers to deal with his grief alone, I tend to like to talk my troubles away. Would it be too distracting if I just sat with you for one more drive?”  
  
“Miss Amy, there are no rules about where the passengers sit as long as we don’t leave you behind or put you in the trunk.” Terrence smiled and shut the back door, moving to open the front. “Your carriage, my lady,” he said and waved his free hand into the car.  
  
“Thank you.” Amy sat in front and held the hem of her coat close as Terrence shut the door.  
  
  
Terrence pulled the car up in front of an imposing home. He turned to open his door and Amy put her hand on his arm to stop him.  
  
“Can we wait just a moment, if you don’t mind?”  
  
“Miss Amy, you may wait as long as you like.”  
  
They sat silently for several minutes, Amy’s hand still on his arm as if she had forgotten it was there, and likely she had. Terrence waited patiently, wishing there was something he could say to help. He had just opened his mouth to say something, anything, when Amy took a deep breath and shook her head as if waking from some fugue. She squared her shoulders and opened her own door. “I won’t be long, I’m sure.”  
  
“I’ll be right here.”  
  
  
  
The sitting room was elegant but lived in, the tea brought by the maid was hot and sweet and accompanied by butter cookies that melted on the tongue, though Amy barely noticed. The woman sitting on the sofa across from her slowly turned the pages of the letters, her hands trembling slightly and every once in a while petting her fingertips across the page as if to touch the author’s cheek. She came to the first returned letter and gasped, looking up at Amy with horror written on her face.  
  
“Dear Lord, Amy, I didn’t know.”  
  
“None of us did, Eugenie.”  
  
“What a terrible way to discover…” Eugenie’s face crumpled into tears and Amy put her teacup and saucer down as Eugenie covered her face with her hands, letter falling to her lap. Amy moved to the sofa and put the letter on the coffee table. She put her arms around Eugenie and let her cry, rubbing circles on her back and shoulders and holding back her own tears.  
  
Eugenie pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and mopped at her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Amy, I know you have had a recent loss as well, this must all be so hard for you. And poor Napoleon, oh poor dear…” The tears started again and Eugenie tried to get a grip on her emotions once more, but leaned into the strength Amy leant her for the moment.  
  
Eugenie excused herself and came back into the room several minutes later with a freshly washed face and eyes that were clearer, but still red-rimmed. She was followed by the housekeeper who had a tray with fresh coffee. The housekeeper bustled around as Eugenie once more sat on the sofa next to Amy.  
  
“I know it’s a bit early, but I need a little liquid courage. May I offer you a ladylike sherry or something a bit stronger with your coffee?”  
  
Amy smiled into the watery eyes of her friend. “Thank you, I wouldn’t turn my nose up at a shot of warmth in my coffee.”  
  
Eugenie turned to the housekeeper who poured some coffee and doctored it with something from a decanter on the sideboard. She sat the cups before the two women and cleared the tea things from earlier, quietly removing herself from the room.  
  
“I apologize, Amy. It’s been…”  
  
Amy patted her arm and Eugenie took her hand in a tight grip. “I can’t understand exactly, of course, but I know it’s difficult, I do.”  
  
Eugenie smiled weakly, grateful that she needn’t try to explain further. “Why do you think they wouldn’t tell us?”  
  
“I suppose they knew we would want a long drawn out engagement, perhaps anticipating an attempt to get them to wait until Napoleon returned from his tour with the Army or until Adrienne graduated. And knowing the two of them and how stubborn they could be, they wanted to prove they could do it all on their own, marriage and making their way in the world.” Amy paused and her voice became very quiet. “Or they just couldn’t wait and were afraid that Korea would, well, separate them for more than several months.”  
  
Eugenie squeezed Amy’s hand. “The marriage certificate must be somewhere in her things from school. I am ashamed to admit that I haven’t had the heart to look through them. But Napoleon should have it, don’t you think?”  
  
“I hadn’t thought about that, I just needed to know if what I suspected was true. I can’t help him if I don’t have all the facts.”  
  
“He didn’t give you these?”  
  
“It’s my turn to be ashamed, Eugenie. I stole them from his bedside.”  
  
The image Eugenie had in her head of her friend purloining the letters threatened to make her grin. “This is the first time in months that I have felt anything close to amused. I should have called you and invited you to tea weeks and weeks ago.”  
  
“Rather than me showing up on your doorstep unannounced?”  
  
“I’m glad you did. Perhaps with your help I will find the strength to look at Adrienne’s things.” Eugenie gave Amy a hopeful look, one that spoke of her sorrow and fear and yet also of her resilience.  
  
“I would be glad to help, even if only to hold your hand while you do what you need to do.”  
  
“Let’s go then.” Eugenie picked up her coffee and sipped, brows rising when she tasted the whiskey. “Oh!” she said when she sat the cup down, “I forgot I asked Constance to fix it strong.”  
  
Amy sipped her own, not surprised at all, sipped again and sat the cup down. “I just need to let my driver know I will be longer, he’s waiting outside.”  
  
“Oh dear, in this weather? Let me send Constance out to retrieve him, she’ll give him some coffee and keep him out of the cold. Coffee with no additives, I mean,” she added when she saw Amy’s brow go up in question.  
  
“Terrence is a fine young man, I expect to get him back in one piece.”  
  
“No promises, Constance is wily creature.”  
  
“Whatever Missus says,” a voice behind them said. Constance moved around to the front of the sofa and poured more coffee, sans alcohol, into their cups. “To whom shall I be plying my innocent ways?”  
  
“Please ask Amy’s driver in for some coffee, if you would.”  
  
“Of course. And would you like some more cookies with your coffee, or sandwiches? You didn’t eat a thing at lunch today.” She finished with the coffee cups and then stood with a look that said she was going to bring sandwiches no matter the answer.  
  
“Amy and I are going upstairs for a while. I promise to eat after that.”  
  
Constance looked a bit skeptical but nodded and turned to go.  
  
“Thank you, Constance.” Eugenie’s voice made it clear that there was more to thank her for than coffee and hospitality to guests. Constance gave her a smile over her shoulder that was affectionate, but warning that there would be dinner later and no arguments. A few moments later the sound of the front door opening and closing could be heard.  
  
“We best be gone when she comes back with your young man, or we will be fed within an inch of our lives.”  
  
“He’s hardly my young man, he works for the car service I hire. He is sweet and lets me ride up front like a real person and is patience itself.”  
  
“Mm-hmm.” Eugenie stood and led the way to the stairs.  
  
Amy realized that her friend was trying very hard to distract herself, something she understood all too well. She followed up the stairs telling her friend of outrageous escapades with her driver, most of which were exaggerations, but only most.  
  
In the doorway of her daughter’s bedroom Eugenie was silent, Amy took her hand again and felt the tight squeeze as Eugenie led her inside. The center of the room was filled with boxes, the bed held two suitcases. Amy led Eugenie across the room and sat her in the chair at the vanity table, back to the mirror.  
  
“There’s no hurry my dear. We can leave it for another day.”  
  
“No, we can’t. I can’t.” Eugenie looked up at Amy. “Napoleon can’t.”  
  
Amy nodded sadly. “Maybe so. What can I do?”  
  
“The school packed all her things, they sent an inventory list. Perhaps there will be a clue there.” Eugenie stood and went to the bed, under one of the suitcases was a sheaf of papers. She handed a few pages to Amy and kept the others, they started to read.  
  
“This says that box number three contains personal papers and correspondence, school work and books, assorted pictures.” Amy looked up from the papers. “A place to start?”  
  
Eugenie nodded. She went to the desk in the corner and sorted through a drawer until she found a letter opener. Thus armed, she looked for the box marked with a number three. Amy restacked the boxes so that they had a work surface and Eugenie wielded the opener and soon they were carefully transferring items from that box onto the top of the stacked boxes. In the bottom of the cardboard box was a small carved wood chest, shut with a little hasp and tiny lock.  
  
“What do you suppose this is?”  
  
“If I were a young university student newly married and very much in love, I would keep just that sort of box with treasures in it.”  
  
“I think you’re right, Amy. How are you at picking locks?”  
  
Amy shrugged and went back to the inventory lists. “Did they mention any keys or key rings in the list you looked through?”  
  
“No. I guess the search is ongoing.”  
  
Amy read through her pages while her friend did the same. It was Eugenie who found the next piece of the puzzle.  
  
“Jewelry box, key in lock. Box five.”  
  
They returned everything to the first box they opened and located the next box, the jewelry box was on top. The key in the lock did not turn in the jewelry box lock. It did so in the carved wooden box.  
  
“Look at this, the lock on the jewelry box doesn’t even work, the lock is for show. The one on the wooden box works. Clever girl. Odd that the jewelry box doesn’t work though.”  
  
“It was a birthday gift when she was just a little girl. I was afraid she would lose the key so I found one that didn’t really lock. She always loved little boxes and things to put other things into.” Eugenie’s voice was wistful as she watched Amy open the wooden box. Amy turned the box around to face Eugenie so she could look inside.  
  
Eugenie picked up the pile of letters, worn with repeated reading. Underneath was one unmarked envelope with a round object pressed to the paper from inside. Eugenie handed that to Amy, nodding at it to encourage her to open it. The flap of the envelope was not sealed, Amy turned it up to spill the ring out into her palm and then pulled the single document out and unfolded it. In fancy scrolling script was written “Certificate of Marriage” and underneath that more words in flowing print, filled in blanks announcing the legal joining of Napoleon Anthony and Adrienne Louise as Mr. and Mrs. Solo. Amy looked up at Eugenie with the paper in one hand and the small gold band cupped in her other hand. They both started to cry softly, for their own reasons and for some of the same reasons.  
  
  
~~~ *** ~~~  
  
 _My Dearest Husband,  
  
I have so many letters for you, some I have sent, the ones filled with happy thoughts to keep you entertained while we are parted. This is one of the letters I am choosing not to send, but will keep in my secrets box where I keep the letters you send to me and the certificate and now my ring as well. I forget to take it off sometimes and there is the chance that I may forget and wear it home. I know we agreed that if our families found out before time that we would own up to our plans, but no sense in tempting fate, is there? It is with so much sadness that I write these next words. Our one magical night of marriage did not produce an heir. I had so hoped that it would. I really wanted to greet you upon your homecoming with our child. I know what a silly fantasy that was, but it was my fantasy to have. Perhaps it takes more practice to create a family, my dear husband. Perhaps (and I can feel my blush just thinking this) you wouldn’t mind if we practice?  
  
As ever with love,  
Your Wife_  
  
~~~ *** ~~~  
  
Amy and Eugenie had pulled the desk chair and the vanity chair up to their makeshift cardboard box table and read all the letters. Napoleon’s were sporadic in their postmarks but steady in their regularity, a reflection of the difficulty in getting mail from a warfront to the waiting loved ones back home. Some of them were even postmarked the same day but had been written weeks apart. The two of them painstakingly ordered them after reading them, as if keeping them in order would bring some solace to their separately sore hearts.  
  
“I think he should have them. She would have given him the unsent ones I think, they were meant for him but not for any prying eyes that might see them between here and there. I think she would have wanted me to give them to him now.” Eugenie replaced the letters into the box with the certificate and ring.  
  
“Are you certain?”  
  
“Amy, those are the only things he will have of her now. I am certain that it is all we can do for him, give him these memories to keep and hope that he will heal.” Eugenie got up and paced around the pile of boxes. “You said he’s given up. If that is so, then he must be shaken out of it as you did for me. What is killing me is wondering how long he waited for her next letter, unaware that she was already gone. How many weeks went by, or months until he received the returned letters from the school address.” Eugenie stopped pacing and turned to face Amy still sitting in her chair. “Those should have been forwarded to me here at home. I will be having a word with the university, you can be sure of that.” With a focus for her energy and ire, Eugenie was coming closer to the firebrand Amy remembered from their youth. “What an abominable way to discover that you’ve been widowed. I at least had policemen come to my door and try to break it to me gently. To just be sent a returned letter like that, it’s terrible. And he’s so young to be a widower. Too young.”  
  
“You are hardly a dowager, Eugenie. Life wasn’t ever meant to be fair I suppose. It doesn’t mean we have to take it lying down.”  
  
“And we won’t. Not ever again, Amy. We’re going to spite fate and take some bites out of life. Let’s start by making sure Napoleon does the same. I’ve cooped myself up in this house for nearly a year. It’s time I started to be part of the world again. Now tell me how to help you prod your nephew back into life.”  
  
***  
  
Napoleon woke and knew immediately that it was the dead of night, the quality of the darkness around him spoke of deepest midnight and not curtain blocked day. He rolled to his back and peered into that dark, taking stock. He was not on a sagging cot or hard hospital bed so he must be somewhere near home. The images invoked by that thought brought the last several weeks back to him. Returning from a patrol to find that mail had at last found its way to them and been delivered, the handful of letters not from his sweet wife as expected but his own handwriting confronting him with smeared ink bluntly telling him what he hoped was a mistake, a terrible lie, some kind of horror perpetrated by clever enemy action. Reckless volunteering and patrols gone too long and far, misinformation that led his group into an ambush, separating his fellow soldiers and the shots that chased them far from known territory. The injury to his leg, the painful hide and seek with the enemy until he could rejoin his group, the ones who did not fare as well or at all. It all came crashing on him like an unstoppable slide show of terror and fear and flashing pain. He sat up in bed and scrubbed his face with his hands, running his hands through his hair and trying to push the horror away from his mind. That’s when the sequel began, newly made flashes of pain and sorrow. Seeing the grave marker chiseled so clear and final, standing at his grandfather’s grave but having passed hers on the way. The family plots were so close, he couldn’t go to one without seeing the other. It had made it all real, seeing her name in stone, the name she had borne all her life except for the last short months, time that they had stolen from fate for themselves. He had tried his best to join her, he realized that now. But that same fate had not seen fit to allow it.  
  
Napoleon reached out and flicked on the bedside light. The letters he had tried to burn were still there, joined now by others and tied with a ribbon. A simple gold band was threaded through the ribbon. He picked up the packet and pulled the ribbon, the letters spilled across the blankets. He read them, all of them, and dawn was staining the sky when he finished. He retied the ribbon around the letters and the marriage certificate, ring in place on the knot he made.  
  
  
Showered and shaved and presentable for the first time in days, Napoleon made his way to the kitchen where he found his Aunt Amy and her best girlhood friend Eugenie, they looked up from their coffee and morning paper. He stood very still, unsure what reception he might expect. Eugenie stood and opened her arms, stepped forward and hugged him with all the might in her small frame. Amy did the same when Eugenie finally let him go. Then Eugenie hugged him again, whispering softly, “I would have been so proud to have you for a son, and Henri would have felt the same.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” was all he could think of to say.  
  
She let go and led him to the table where Amy filled a coffee cup for him. “They were out getting a Christmas tree of all things, a big truck lost control on the ice and,” Eugenie made a helpless gesture with her hands, “then the police were at my door and I didn’t leave my house again except for the funeral. I’ve been waiting for them to come home I guess. It isn’t going to happen. And I am not going to wait for it all to end, we’re here for a reason whether we know it or not. We should get on with it, with life. Henri and Adrienne would hate seeing us all bent and broken, so we aren’t going to be, Napoleon, we just aren’t.” Her determination was fierce and Napoleon could see so much of Adrienne in her, could see where that adventurous spirit he had loved so much had originated. He felt himself start to smile, just a hint of the usual smile he was capable of, but more than he had been for so many months. There was no arguing with a DeClerque woman when she got that look in her eye, so he didn’t.  
  
*** *** ***  
  
“What do you think of the old place, can it be retrofitted into an acceptably secure vacation destination?”  
  
Illya looked up from the blueprints and photographs littering the big desk. “I think it can be, and with very little work in fact. UNCLE North America will have its own Camp David in under six months. It is helpful that it can’t in any way be linked to you or to UNCLE, likely THRUSH will never figure out it exists. But are you sure that you want to give it up entirely? You could keep it, you know. Someday you might want to retire.”  
  
Napoleon grinned and shook his head. “I don’t plan to stay in one place after I retire, I plan to see the world, this time not from a firing position. I hope that it will be a long time from now though.”  
  
“I hope you are planning to tell me how you found this paradise of security and anonymity.”  
  
Napoleon knew that it was eating at Illya that none of his research or that of his staff could figure out how Napoleon had come to have the deed to a retreat they couldn’t tie to him. “There is a story in that. You see, for a very short time I had some in-laws. And as the last surviving member of the family, even if only by the briefest of marriages, I inherited the place.”  
  
Illya knew his partner had been married, it was in his file. The date of the marriage was right before his being shipped out to Korea, no other mention of the marriage was made in the file. There was no mention of a divorce decree and if the girl or her family had asked for an annulment it wouldn’t necessarily be recorded in Napoleon’s file. Her name wasn’t even mentioned in his file so it had never occurred to anyone to ask about it. If Alexander Waverly had known the facts, he had never recorded them and was no longer available to ask. It was irksome, Illya thought, that he would have to ask at this late date.  
  
Napoleon opened a drawer in the desk and took out a faded packet of letters. The paper was brittle but still flexible enough, he thought, for reading. He stood and walked to the other side of the desk, sat the packet gently on top of the blueprints in front of Illya. Illya looked from the packet up to him and back.  
  
“That ribbon has been in a knot for decades now, you might have to cut it, it’s alright if you do. I’ll be in the canteen.” Napoleon left before Illya could protest.  
  
  
  
Napoleon returned to his office, it was strange to think of it as his though he’d been occupying it for many months now. The blueprints and photographs had been cleared away, his desk empty except for the packet of letters. He inspected it closely and could barely tell the ribbon had been untied and tied back in place, he suspected that Illya had done that on purpose to let him know that he had indeed read them. The ring was just as it had been, tied into the knot.  
  
He replaced the packet in the locked compartment of the drawer, put on his coat and headed for the garage exit.  
  
  
Napoleon waited with as much patience as he could while his security detail checked the garage and then allowed him to enter the elevator. He understood the routine, sympathized with its necessity, still despised the need for it. It was with great relief that he unlocked his door and set his alarm once again and could relax in the privacy of his own apartment. Napoleon removed his coat, hung it in the closet and went about his usual ritual of returning home from a day at work. His suit jacket he put on the back of a kitchen chair on his way to the cupboard for a glass and the freezer for ice. If he was a little more vigorous with the martini shaker, well no one was there to fault him for it, and his vodka martini was so dry that he merely thought about the vermouth. He decided to just put the vodka into the freezer and thus skip the need for stirring or shaking altogether in future. He retired to the livingroom with his drink and sat on the couch watching the skyline out his window darken with sunset and then slowly flicker to life as night changed over command of the city.  
  
  
Napoleon startled from his doze on the couch, right hand automatically reaching for his side arm. Belatedly, he recognized the coded knock and relaxed. He made his way through the dark livingroom to the short hall and disarmed the security as Illya’s key turned in the lock. Illya shut and locked the door and Napoleon reset the alarm. They stood in the dark hall for a long moment.  
  
“Drink?”  
  
“Please.”  
  
Napoleon detoured to the coffee table for his neglected glass and made his way to the kitchen. He opened the refrigerator door for light and then the freezer, retrieving Illya’s vodka from the shelf and handing it over, then the bottle he’d placed there earlier for himself.  
  
“You’ve finally discovered the wisdom of the freezer.”  
  
“I like the ritual of the martini, thank you. Although tonight expedience was foremost in my mind, yes.”  
  
“Good vodka needs no additions.”  
  
“Says the man who will drink lighter fluid.”  
  
“Only when necessary to an escape plan, and I never swallow.”  
  
“Untrue.”  
  
Illya nearly choked on his vodka.  
  
“Am I forgiven, then?”  
  
Illya was silent for a very long moment made more fraught by the darkness of the kitchen.  
  
Napoleon downed the rest of his glass of vodka and turned away.  
  
“I’m not angry, Napoleon. I wasn’t angry.” Illya walked to the door and flicked the light switch bathing the room in bright electric light. He stood in the arch between the livingroom and kitchen, blocking any retreat. There was a graze on one cheekbone and his knuckles were a little worse for wear. “I got called to a developing situation in Medical and I thought I’d be back to your office before you returned from coffee.” Illya shrugged, “It took a little longer to clear up the misunderstanding than I had planned. I should have realized that you might misinterpret my disappearance.” He stepped closer to his partner. “We both have pasts, Napoleon, we had lives before UNCLE and before one another. Yours might include some things that are somewhat more difficult to explain or discuss, I am realizing.”  
  
“It’s not that I wouldn’t tell you, or didn’t want to tell you. Sometimes it seems as if that all happened to another person entirely.”  
  
“Maybe it did. In some other universe you are happily married with half a dozen children living in a remote lodge in upstate New York, you never were recruited by an international law enforcement agency and your wife designs rocket boosters for NASA while you write frightening articles about the psychology of chess and your literature students fear your grading standards. But we are in this universe, and in this one I am just very tired and very sorry that you imagined I would somehow think less of you for your past.”  
  
“I’m taking you to bed before you get any more quantum mechanical at me.”  
  
“Allow me a shower first and I will show you my theories on testing the Pauli Exclusion Principle.”  
  
“Allow me to join you in the shower and I will test my theory on the Kuryakin Inclusion Principle.”  
  
Illya laughed as he switched off the kitchen light and made his way down the dark hall to the master bedroom and bath, Napoleon following all the way. 

 

 


End file.
